Joaquim Pijoan i Arbocer

Joaquim Pijoan (Santa Cristina d'Aro, Baix Empordà, 27 March 1948) is a Spanish painter and writer from Catalonia.

His published works are Somni (1983), Sayonara Barcelona (2007) and Amor a Venècia (2007). He considers painting as his passion, but he has become famous by two literary awards: the Documenta (1982) by Somni and, especially, the Premi Sant Jordi de novel·la (2006) for his work Sayonara Barcelona. The only material published between these two dates was in Revista de Girona.

Sayonara Barcelona Sayonara Barcelona, his second novel was published in 2007. He received the Premi Sant Jordi de novel·la, an award by Òmnium Cultural, in 2006.

Plot Abraham is a painter who left Barcelona twenty-five years ago, without telling anyone, leaving behind many people, especially a pregnant girl. Now he is returning from Japan, where he has been living, to say goodbye to the city and its past and not come back ever again. Abraham understands that everything on this trip has changed too, even himself, completely tied to Japanese culture and not to the West, the friends and especially the city, which has become a thematic park where it is very difficult to hear someone speaking Catalan.

This novel is written, first with narrator in third person who observes his characters, so that even as he is found as a character in the novel, as a private detective who follows them. Sentences in first person can also be found with the characters narrating their views. These effects give polyphony in the novel.